Proven methods for smoother and more productive teamwork Teamwork is rarely simple, easy, or natural. It’s not enough to announce “we’re a team” and expect results. The Fieldstone Nonprofit Guide to Developing Effective Teams is a collection of the best tried-and-true team-building methods. All types of nonprofits, community groups, volunteers, and board members can benefit from the tips and processes in this guide. Plus, no matter what role you play on the team, you can use this guide and help bolster your team’s success. Tools for team start-up To help your team get going, this guide gives you seven tools and techniques for: Writing a team mission statement Setting team goals Conducting effective team meetings p Creating ground rules Decision making in teams Creating team project plans Developing team spirit. Tools for team maintenance Even the best teams struggle with challenges. This guide will help you deal with predictable problems and improve teamwork at any stage of your team’s development. You’ll find specific guidance for: Improving team meetings Evaluating overall team effectiveness Resolving conflict within a team Managing conflict between two teams Clarifying roles and responsibilities Dealing with performance problems Communicating between meetings. With a few tools and a little guidance, most groups of people who want to become a team can do it. Developing Effective Teams is just the help you need!

Bring focus and direction to your work Too often, if you ask four people in a nonprofit what their organization's mission is, you'll get four different answers. Organizations without clearly defined and agreed-to mission and vision statements frequently find themselves adrift at sea, in real financial trouble, and unable to make an ongoing, positive impact on the community. But an effective mission and vision statement can help an organization unify services and create a consistent approach to new program development. Crafting Effective Mission and Vision Statements will help your organization develop (or revise) mission and vision statements that bring focus and direction to your work. With orderly, easy-to-follow steps, this engaging guide helps you: Build ownership for the mission and vision statements among board and staff Create a common understanding of your organization's goals Understand how mission and vision statements differ and how to use both for greatest benefit Develop a mission statement that captures exactly what your organization does Create a vision statement based on stakeholders' ideas and the organization's history, capacity for growth, and fundraising potential Use this guide to create mission and vision statements that help your organization stay focused and keep it moving toward a positive future.

Let's face it, the collaboration process can be a pain in the neck. The Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success, shows collaborations how to become leaner, more responsive, more flexible, and ultimately, more productive. In their bestselling book, Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey, Michael Winer and Karen Ray describe how to form a successful collaboration. In The Nimble Collaboration, Ray guides existing partnerships into the next stage: becoming more effective. Part I presents the ""three Rs"" of nimble collaboration: results that are clearly defined, relationships that are deft, and a structure that is resilient. Readers will learn how to determine, describe, and evaluate the specific results everyone wants to achieve—and keep them at the heart of each step they take. The book shows readers how to build trust, reinforce roles, and avoid turf issues and hidden agendas. Part II walks through real-life applications in two typical collaborations: service integration collaborations, and complex problem-solving collaborations. Detailed case studies demonstrate nimbleness in action and give collaborations concrete problem-solving ideas. Throughout the book are samples, examples, and how-tos based on the author's many years of experience consulting with real people in real collaborations across the United States. A special section explains how to write the various documents that bind partners together on paper, including a memo of agreement and a formal governance agreement. Collaborations that involve government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, community-building groups, nonprofits, law enforcement, education, health, housing, arts, social services, business, foundation—you name it—will find hands-on help for making their collaboration satisfying and productive.

This is your complete guide to putting together a collaboration that gets results! You'll see how to get a collaboration going, define the results you're after, determine everyone's roles, create an action plan, and evaluate the results. Includes a case study, worksheets, and special sidebars with helpful tips such as what to do at your first meeting.

Traditionally, funders expect evaluation to show that resources are being used wisely. But evaluation can be a much more powerful tool--for both funders and nonprofits. Forward-looking grantmakers and grantees are leveraging their evaluations, ensuring that the time and money spent ultimately improves effectiveness for everyone. This book shows how they're doing it, including - How the ""evaluative learning"" approach furthers ongoing improvement via collaborative, stakeholder influenced evaluations - How to bridge the differences in what funders and nonprofits need from evaluation - How evaluation builds four critical capacities--leadership, adaptive capacity, management, and technical capacity - Seven steps a funder can take to build the evaluative learning capacity in nonprofits - Thirteen specific evaluative learning strategies that funders can support Worksheets and assessment tools will help funders 1) assess their readiness to implement evaluative learning; 2) develop a logic model; 3) uncover grantees' current evaluation efforts and preparedness for evaluative learning; and 4) use resources wisely when selecting an evaluative learning support strategy. When the funding community supports evaluative learning, nonprofits and funders together can figure out how to strengthen programs, better allocate resources, and share successful models.

How to foster community problem solving: Filled with fresh ideas, concrete strategies, wisdom from the field, compelling case studies, and contact information, Community Visions, Community Solutions provokes both thought and action, fosters new ideas, and leads to solutions. This book is for community, independent, public, family, or corporate foundations; federated giving organizations; government agencies; corporate giving programs; capacity building providers; independent consultants; management support organizations; for-profit consulting firms; intermediary organizations; retired executives; community support organizations; state associations of nonprofits; research groups; staff or trustees of a nonprofit; and academic institutions. Benefits you'll get include a three-step process for laying groundwork for community-wide change, pros and cons of different community governance strategies, three strategies for funding solutions, a list of community support organization dos and don'ts, case studies, and an extensive resource list for further reading. This book is the second in a series of funders guides developed by Fieldstone Alliance and GEO. The series is aimed at strengthening nonprofit organizations, the communities they serve, and the nonprofit sector through effective grantmaking.

The step-by-step guide to turning any neighborhood around A weak local economy can be strengthened. A run-down neighborhood of boarded-up storefronts, litter-strewn sidewalks, high unemployment, and poorly-maintained housing can be transformed. An entire community can be lifted up. Mihailo (Mike) Temali knows this first-hand. He has spent nearly twenty years working in community-based economic development, helping cities as diverse as St. Paul, Minnesota, and Santiago, Chile. In this concrete, practical, jargon-free handbook, he describes a proven way to make any community a better place to live. Comprehensive, realistic, and easy-to-use If you don't already have a community economic development (CED) organization in place, Temali tells you how to set one up. Then he defines four pivot points that are crucial to neighborhood economies: 1) Revitalizing your commercial district; 2) Developing microbusinesses; 3) Developing your community workforce; and 4) Growing good neighborhood jobs. He explains how to choose your first pivot point, then guides you through the process of tackling each one. True stories of successful CED provide inspiration. Sidebars explore related issues: dealing with gentrification, finding potential partners, supporting microentrepreneurs, and more. Other CED professionals share their insights in "From the Field" notes. Appendices point you toward useful resources, show you how to use the Internet to research your regional economy, and include dozens of worksheets that will help you move from reading about CED to doing it. The Community Economic Development Handbook is precisely what you need to turn your neighborhood around!